When Harvard University set out to teach Communist Party cadres in Vietnam about capitalism, in the mid-1990s, it was lucky to get any applicants at all. The one-year program offered free tuition, free housing, and even a monthly stipend, but the wounds from the war were still raw, and suspicions ran deep.
The program could not advertise, so it had to rely on provincial authorities and state-owned companies to nominate people to attend. There was no way of knowing if being sent to Harvard’s program to learn about the free market was a reward or a punishment.
Ten years after the first class graduated, the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program is one of the most sought-after courses in the country. Today its alumni are some of the key players driving one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, spurred in part by the government, which has been shedding some restrictions on markets.
“We thought the way the state thought,” says Vu Bao Quoc, who was one of the first people to go through the economics-diploma program and later became the first Vietnamese vice president of Citibank. “When we attended lectures about the market economy and international finance, this was the first time we had heard such things. It was all new to me.”
From the beginning, “Harvard has been an academic island,” says Vu Thanh Tu Anh, a Fulbright lecturer as well as a researcher. He and the other professors here say that the program has challenged every notion students had about how an economy works, and by implication, how government should, too. It lays bare the problems that arise in a centrally planned economy and examines the pitfalls common to state-owned enterprises.
The very nature of teaching is different, too, says Chau Van Thanh, dean of the Fulbright program. The campus’s main lecture hall is like a small amphitheater, where students sit higher than the professor. Students are encouraged to argue and to challenge. Even today the process can be painful for students, who were all raised with the idea that to question a teacher is not just disrespectful, but also shameful.
“It’s revolutionary,” says Ben Wilkinson, associate director of Harvard’s Vietnam Program, which oversees its Fulbright program. “But what’s wrong with a little revolution?”
An Unorthodox Notion
Today, of course, American universities have programs all over the world. But when Harvard approached Vietnam in the late 1980s, the idea of teaching communists how to be capitalists was an unorthodox notion. Many, including Sens. John F. Kerry and John McCain, both Vietnam veterans, believed it could be a way to improve relations with the country. Even today the $2-million program is financed largely by the State Department and is still considered a diplomatic mission.
One sore point for the 60-some students who graduate each year from the one-year program in economics and public policy is that they will not receive a master’s degree for their efforts. Harvard has chosen not to comply with the Vietnamese government’s maze of rules and regulations, such as teaching Ho Chi Minh’s thought. In a country that highly prizes degrees, this discourages those who need a piece of paper to move up the career ladder.
Nevertheless, the program has plenty of takers, who get a certificate signifying they have completed the program, which does mean something, since not all students finish successfully.
These days the concepts Harvard is teaching are not so radical anymore. Vietnam has now lived 20 years under the economic policies of doi moi, or renewal. Ho Chi Minh City’s traffic jams, its Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets, and its shops overflowing with imported gadgets are proof enough that the free market has arrived.
Most students have grown up with reforms, notes David O. Dapice, an economist with the Vietnam program and an associate professor at Tufts University. They understand that monopolies raise prices. All they have to do is to look at their cellphones, he says, referring to the recent proliferation of telecommunications companies in Vietnam, which has made calls so cheap that even rickshaw drivers own cellphones.
Yet despite changes in the economy, students still come wedded to antiquated ideas, says Mr. Tu Anh. He says this is in large part because of the influence of the education system they have gone through.
“Most have a hard time criticizing the government,” he adds. “They get used to thinking in a certain way, and we are asking them to think differently.”
One example that stands out, says Mr. Tu Anh, is a recent discussion of the government’s plans to build a new airport for Ho Chi Minh City. The current airport can easily handle projected numbers of passengers, yet the plan is to build a massive facility in a neighboring province. The new airport will be convenient for no one — except perhaps those who have the cement contracts.
The professor from Harvard called the construction plan a suicide policy and a boondoggle, says Mr. Tu Anh. But several students objected to the characterization, saying a big airport would help present a powerful image of Vietnam to the world. The rest of the class booed the government supporters, but they remained firm. But then the professor asked the class, “Would you buy a bond issued to raise money for the project?”
Mr. Tu Ahn smiles and says, “No one raised their hand.”
http://chronicle.com Section: International Volume 52, Issue 40, Page A38